


Against the World

by GrayJay



Series: Rex Racer on the Final Turn [3]
Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Brothers, Family, Speed Racer - Freeform, Summers Brothers, Very gentle retcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 10:43:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2770100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrayJay/pseuds/GrayJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>And that’s the hardest part, Alex thinks--all the tiny ways his brother hasn’t changed, waiting just under the surface to ambush him as soon as he starts to think he’s come to terms with the fact that they’re never going to be able to pick up where they left off, that they’re both really fucking broken in ways a weekend of beer and blanket forts probably isn’t going to fix.</em>
</p><p>Not quite a first meeting, but the first in a very long time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Against the World

**Author's Note:**

> While this story can stand alone (at least in theory), it'll make the most sense between chapters [42](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2356574/chapters/5200922) and [43](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2356574/chapters/5200955) of [Rex Racer on the Final Turn](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2356574/chapters/5200295).

He’s so scared that he won’t recognize Scott that when he does, Alex almost doesn’t believe it--tall and lanky, and even with the sunglasses he looks so much like their dad it fucking _hurts_. He’s scanning the crowd at the gate, and there’s a moment when Alex is sure Scott isn’t going to recognize him, but Scott smiles and raises one hand in a tentative half-wave, and Alex waves back, bouncing on the balls of his feet and grinning so hard it feels like his face is going to split.

And then Scott’s there in front of him, both of them standing there trying to figure out what the hell to do, because there is no manual for this; no Miss Manners guide to meeting your only brother, back from the dead after twelve years. Alex starts to go in for a hug, sees Scott tense up, and aborts to an awkward handshake.

“Hey,” says Alex.

“Hey,” says Scott.

“God,” says Scott. “Wow. You’re--you’re all grown up.” His voice catches on the last word, and suddenly Alex is blinking back tears.

“How was the flight?” he asks, because he really doesn’t want to start crying in the airport.

“Oh,” says Scott. “It was, um. It was fine.”

“How did you get so fucking _tall_?” Alex says. Scott shrugs and bites his lip, and they walk out to the car in silence.

* * *

Alex doesn’t know what he was expecting--he’s been trying his best not to expect anything, to push back the reunions he’s been playing out in his head since he was eight--but it sure as hell wasn’t this: Scott quiet and jumpy, twelve years and every word he says piled up between them. Everything’s a little unreal, and Alex is distracted and nervous enough to stall out at every third light, and _god_ , Scott must think he’s such an asshole.

 _What if this is it?_ he thinks. _What if it never gets any better?_ What if he’s fucked everything up, those critical first few minutes, and it’s been too long, and they’ll never-- _god fucking damnit_.

“Have you eaten?” he asks Scott. “Are you hungry? Or do you want--we could go back to my place and drop your stuff off, or if you’re tired or something--”

“I’m fine,” says Scott. “Whatever you want to do.” He runs a hand through his hair. “God. I’m sorry. This is just so--I don’t know what to--I’m sorry.”

“No,” says Alex. “It’s cool. Me, too.” They’re both quiet for a while, and then Alex says, “We’re just out of practice.”

“Just a little,” says Scott, and the worst part is that Alex can’t even tell if he’s joking.

* * *

At the dorm, Alex makes a beeline for the bathroom and splashes cold water on his face and wonders how the fuck he’s going to do this for three days. He comes out to find Scott still standing in the corner, holding his backpack in one hand and looking like he’s weighing the pros and cons of making a break for it--not that Alex would blame him, right now.

“You okay?” he asks.

Scott jumps. “Oh. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry.”

“It’s cool,” says Alex. “You just seemed--” _Lost_. _Sad_. Nothing Alex is going to let himself say aloud right now. He wishes Scott would say something that didn’t have an apology attached.

“I’m sorry,” Scott says, again.

“It’s okay,” Alex says. “It really is. I’m just glad you’re here.” He casts around for a foothold, anything. “Wanna see something completely dumb?”

It’s just a ghost of a smile, but it’s something. “Sure. Yeah.”

Alex pulls back his blanket, and Scott actually laughs when he sees the worn out Speed Racer sheets. “That’s fantastic.”

“I figure, if we’re gonna make a blanket fort, we should do it in style,” Alex says, and then, because he’s over by the bed anyway, he tells Scott, “Someone wants to say hi,” and tosses him Bear.

“Is this--” Scott starts, and then breaks off and sits down on the floor. “Oh, my god.” He just sits there, not saying anything, just turning the ragged old bear over and over in his hands. His face is unreadable behind the glasses, just a slight twitch in the jaw as his shoulders silently shake, which is enough to set Alex off, too.

He sits down on the floor next to Scott, and what Alex really wants to do is just grab on to Scott and never let go; but Scott’s obviously not great with being touched, and Alex is trying really hard not to push it, so he hugs his knees to his chest and leans into the wall instead. And maybe there’s still a point where big-brother instincts override the damage, because after a moment, Scott wraps an arm around Alex and pulls him in. They’re both crying like fucking kids now, and Scott keeps apologizing, and Alex is sobbing too hard to talk.

“I missed you,” Alex tells Scott’s chest, once he can kind of breathe; and hears a shaky “Me, too,” muffled into his hair.

“I think I ruined your shirt,” Alex says, his face still half buried. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” says Scott, then adds, “I think it’s still a net win as long as you don’t pee in my shoes,” which is enough to set Alex off half-laughing-half-crying again.

“I was fucking six,” Alex protests. “I can’t believe you even remember that.”

“I can’t believe you did it _in the first place_ ,” Scott counters, and then they’re both laughing for real.

“This is so fucked up,” says Alex, shaking his head. “You. This. Everything.”

“Yeah,” says Scott. He looks down again at the bear, still in his lap; runs his thumb over the frayed _S_ on the foot. “I still can’t believe--I mean-- _Bear_ , even. God. All this time.”

“He’s a trooper,” says Alex.

“Yeah, he is,” says Scott. “Good old Bear.”

* * *

Alex is sort of expecting it’ll be easier after that, but once Scott’s washed his face and changed his shirt, he’s even more shut off than before, jaw set, shoulders hunched; and it’s so perfectly the Scott he remembers that Alex can’t quite stifle a laugh.

Scott starts. “What?” he asks.

“You’re still so _you_ ,” Alex tells him. Scott tilts his head, shoots him a quizzical look. “You were always so fucking weird about crying in front of people.”

“I guess,” says Scott, and it’s pretty obvious they’re not gonna bond over that one, so it’s another couple minutes of awkward silence Alex doesn’t know how to fill.

“Do you want to go out?” Alex asks. “We could get food, or, I don’t know, order in and watch a movie or something. Whatever. I have, um--” He thinks about the stack of DVDs he rented, every cartoon they grew up with, everything awesome that they missed seeing together in theaters, and suddenly feels like a fucking idiot.

“Sure,” says Scott. “Whatever you want to do.”

What Alex wants to do is start the whole day over, and this time say all the right things in the right order, over and over like that bullshit Bill Murray movie, until he figures out the code. He wants to have a conversation with Scott that doesn’t feel like throwing himself at a brick wall. He wants his fucking _brother_ back. “There’s a pretty okay noodle place by campus,” he says.

“Sure,” says Scott, again.

* * *

“This is nice,” Scott says. They’re out by the cliffs, at the edge of what Alex is pretty sure (but doesn’t fucking care) is private property, watching the sun set. Below, in the water, the lights from the city fracture and blend with the rising stars.

“Yeah,” says Alex. It’s the main reason he prefers trespassing to public beaches--they’re far enough off the tourist paths to get some genuine quiet--and a moment after he answers, he realizes it’s the first thing Scott’s said unprompted since the airport.

“Do you come here a lot?” Scott asks.

“Yeah,” says Alex. “It’s where--” he starts, and then breaks off, because there’s no way to say it that’s not going to suck. He’s starting to wish they’d just gone back to the dorm after all, thinks that if they were watching movies, at least he wouldn’t have to figure out what to say. But Scott’s just sitting there, head cocked, so Alex finishes, “It’s where I used to, um. To talk to you, a lot, back when I thought you were--you know.”

“What did you say?” asks Scott. When Alex starts to repeat himself, he shakes his head. “No. Sorry. I meant back when--you used to--what did you say to me, I mean? Back then? Not me, obviously, but--”

“Oh,” says Alex. It’s not a question he was expecting. “Um. I don’t know. Whatever. I’d, um. I’d tell you what I was--things in my life. School. Girls. Stuff like that. And complain a lot, I guess. And about stuff I thought you’d have liked. And that I missed you. I don’t know. You were kind of like my imaginary friend.” As soon as he’s said it, he remembers what Scott wrote, about the orphanage people who tried to convince him that he’d made Alex up. “Fuck. Sorry. That was--the imaginary friend thing, I wasn’t thinking. Sorry.”

“What?” says Scott. “Oh. That, yeah. No, it’s fine.” He sits there in silence for a moment, and then says, “Is it weird that I’m jealous?”

“Of what?” asks Alex.

Scott shrugs. “Your imaginary Scott. The one who got to be here. Talk to you.”

And _fuck_ , that might be the saddest thing Alex has ever heard in his life, and because he totally fucking gets it, too. “Don’t forget the space adventures. Imaginary Scott totally got to have rad space adventures.”

Scott laughs. “Yeah. Imaginary Scott definitely got the better end of the deal.”

“I like Real Scott better, though,” Alex tells him. “I mean, Imaginary Scott was a dick. You wouldn’t go to space without me, right?”

“No way,” says Scott. “Together or bust.”

They sit there for a while longer, watching the lights--Alex wonders how much night vision Scott can have in those glasses, but asking seems like it might cross the invisible line he’s still feeling out--until Scott says, out of nowhere, “I’m so sorry.”

Alex wonders if the weekend will go by faster if he gets a stopwatch and times how long his brother can go without apologizing, then kind of hates himself for thinking it. “What for?”

“I don’t know,” says Scott. “Everything. Me. I know you were hoping this would be all--I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” says Alex. He reaches out without thinking, and Scott’s shoulder tenses under his hand, but Scott doesn’t pull away. “Hey. Scott. Look. This isn’t your fault, okay? It’s just--I mean, yeah, it’s weird. But we’ll--we’ll figure it out.”

Scott looks down. “I just--I wish I’d--if I’d kept looking--”

Oh, _fuck_ , so _that’s_ what it’s about. “No,” Alex tells him. “ _No_. You don’t get to--you don’t get to feel bad about that. Not now, not ever. We’re--look, what matters is that we’re here now. You and me. Together or bust, right?”

Scott smiles. “I don’t know if you’d remember this, but back when we were little, when we were playing--I don’t know, spies or whatever--there was this thing you’d always--I have no idea where you got it from, probably one of Dad’s pulps, or maybe a movie or something, but you’d just, like, yell, ‘ _Summers brothers_ \--’ “

Alex finishes it with him. “ ‘-- _against the world_.’ I have no idea where I got it from, either, but it was definitely gonna be our catchphrase. For when we were international super-spies or space guys or whatever. Or maybe for the movie they’d make about it, like if we got famous or something.” _This is how it should be_ , he thinks. The two of them, together; and it doesn’t have to be perfect, doesn’t even have to be easy. Fighting back-to-back on the bridge of a spaceship, or the Casino Royale, or a cliff over the ocean. _Summers Brothers Against Gravity_. _Summers Brothers Against Time_.

Scott sighs. “World’s pretty big, Alex.”

Alex shrugs. “Hasn’t beaten us yet.”

* * *

They crash early--Scott’s running on New York time, five hours ahead, and by ten he’s dead on his feet, nodding off between _Batman_ episodes.

“Is it gonna keep you up if I’ve got a light on?” Alex asks.

“Nah,” says Scott, and pulls the blankets up over his head, exactly like he used to the last time they shared a room, a lifetime ago.

And that’s the hardest part, Alex thinks--all the tiny ways his brother hasn’t changed, waiting just under the surface to ambush him as soon as he starts to think he’s come to terms with the fact that they’re never going to be able to pick up where they left off, that they’re both really fucking broken in ways a weekend of beer and blanket forts probably isn’t going to fix.

Across the room, Scott stirs and mumbles something into his pillow.

“Sorry,” says Alex. “What?”

The blanket comes down a few inches, and there’s a glint of red from the glasses (and he’s never fucking going to get used to that).

“G’night, Speed Racer,” says Scott.

“G’night, Racer X,” Alex replies, but Scott’s already fast asleep.


End file.
